Caspian Gull, 19th August

I still feel knackered after Birdfair - I woke up aching this morning - some sort of of delayed reaction to the toil of standing up all weekend. Is that normal at 23? This sounds all very clichéed, but it was genuinely great to catch up with lots of old friends as well as put names to many a face over the weekend - thanks to all those that came to (re-)introduce themselves at the BirdGuides/Birdwatch stand. Sadly, as I was the only BirdGuides representative over the weekend, I didn't get the free time that I'd have hoped to have a proper mooch around and catch up/meet many more. I also didn't find a Two-barred Crossbill, despite a reasonable amount of effort in various Northants woodlands. Still, a great weekend nonetheless.

I had yesterday morning off work - news shift from 15:30 meant I had a little bit of time to play with. The initial plan of a lie-in failed miserably due to our overexcitable springer spaniel, who thought nothing of charging up to my room and licking my face at half seven in the morning until I was forced from beneath the sheets. On the way back to London, I called in at my old gulling haunts in Peterborough. The hallowed turf of Dogsthorpe Tip was a sad sight - no tipping, the landfill capped off and, as a result, no gulls. Tears began to fill my eyes, so I hastily moved on. A marginally better situation at Tanholt saw just a couple of hundred LWHGs on the old pit. A welcome adult Yellow-legged Gull was one of the first birds scrutinized and, shortly afterwards, squinting directly in to the strong late morning sunshine, I clocked this rotter floating around (here portrayed during a cloudier moment):

Though challenging in many instances, sometimes you come across Caspian Gulls that are refreshingly conspicuous. You've got a bunch of gulls in front of you, and the bird in question just sticks out like a proverbial sore thumb - a bit like this one. Not only is it a big old bird (approaching Great Black-backed size), but the white head contrasts with the long, dark bill to create a distinctive and contrasted appearance. Obvious Caspian Gulls have an immediately recognisable facial expression - snouty, with a small-looking eye. You then start moving down the body for more clues: the obvious shawl on the hindneck, the clean underparts, scapular pattern, largely dark brown tertials and, though not shown in the photographs, a clean white uppertail, undertail and rump, with sharply-defined black tail band. Compare it to the Herring of the same age just meandering in to view at the left-hand end of the photo above. Further ropey records, illustrating the features mentioned, are shown below:

Having a drink...

 ... giving good 'face'...

... and dwarving the local Herrings and Lesser Black-backs - note how clean the undertail is.

Incidentally, this was the first bird that I've solely digiscoped in quite some time. It has demonstrated one thing: I desperately need a new tripod. I might as well have mounted my 'scope on a blancmange - the head is all over the place! Perhaps I should have shelled out at Birdfair after all...

Weekend on Mull

 Duart Castle from the Oban-Craignure ferry

Just back from a weekend on Mull with Chris C and Ash H. Had great success on our chartered boat with the excellent Sea Life Surveys out of Tobermory on Saturday, connecting with about 15 Basking Sharks off the north side of Coll during the afternoon in addition to a couple of Minke Whales and a bunch of Harbour Porpoises. Birds included a few White-tailed Eagles, and a couple of Storm-petrels among more common seabirds.

 Minke Whale

Basking Shark

The real highlight, though, was getting to swim with the sharks. Though we were a little limited on time, we had some great passes - best for me was one animal cruising by within just a few metres (see images below). Unfortunately I only had my housemate's basic Go Pro to take photos/video with, so only managed a few blurry records and a short video of one animal making a more distant pass. A couple of photos (that's Ash in the first one):

... and here's the video (best watched in HD):

Thanks very much to Ewan and all the rest of the team at Sea Life Surveys for a fantastic day out, and great to meet Sandy, Gus et al. on the boat. Here's hoping I'll be back next year!

Odd juvenile Yellow-legged Gull

Spent a few hours at Rainham on Tuesday morning. It was sunny, warm and the tip was plagued with heat haze. That said, the gulls showed pretty well on the Thames foreshore opposite the area they are tipping (near the bend in the Thames). Try and spot a few michs in the shot above!

Overall, I had at least 35 Yellow-legged Gulls throughout the morning, with the commonest age classes being juveniles and adults. Among the juveniles was the dopey creature below, which spent much of its time on its own along the foreshore towards high tide and allowed for some reasonable photo opportunities. Nothing odd about the plumage (a classic, with scapular moult already well underway as you'd expect), but the pale bill gave it a really distinctive look.

California trip report

It was as long ago as February that I visited California with Rich Bonser and Lee Gregory, but I've finally managed to get the trip report processed. You can view and download below, as in the usual manner of my reports:

Hot Mediterranean action

Adult Mediterranean Gull drifting over Langtoft Fen

I think I say it just about every time I blog about them, but adult Med Gulls are great. They're preposterously good-looking and sound the business too. On my old stomping ground around the pits at Langtoft, a pair or two can usually be found kicking about among the throng of breeding Black-headed Gulls every summer (though never yet confirmed breeding). That said, it's always great to actually see them and thus I was pretty chuffed to find a pair loafing around on one of the new roadside pits over the weekend. Disappointingly, though, there were no youngsters in tow despite some suggestive behaviour - for example, I got out the car and they decided to fly around my head, calling. Friday was a hot day, and the bird is actually panting in both images below, not exercising its vocal chords.

They did warn me...

I've been told by a number of people that getting in to orchids can be a dangerous game. As Mr Lowen said to me once, "you think large white-headed gulls are hard? Wait 'til you get in to dacts!". I laughed it off. I'd seen some strange looking creatures down at my dad's old place in Kenfig, and thought I was well prepared for problematic Dactylorhiza-types. Then, while at Holt Country Park in Norfolk over the weekend, this 'thing' appeared in front of me and left me flummoxed:

The plant was in a marshy area at the bottom of the country park's heath area, among many hundreds of Common Spotted Orchids. At a first glance I presumed it to be a Fragrant Orchid due to the lack of spots on the leaves and flowers but, to me, the size (huge) and shape of flowers is not right. The shape and structure is kind of reminiscent of Common Spotted Orchid, but the obvious lack of spots (and the overall flower structure) are not quite there.

So, is it a Fragrant x Common Spotted Orchid? I'd be more than interested in others' thoughts!

Last week at Collard Hill

It's been a breathless couple of weeks, and I haven't yet had chance to share a few photos from Collared Hill on 28th June. Large Blue proved really difficult and it was only within the last five minutes of our 5-hour visit that we finally scored.

Also seen were a few Wasp Orchid spikes along with a more typical Bee Orchid.

Un-bridled Joy

Bridled Tern with a backdrop of auks - an Inner Farne special

This summer is starting to get a little crazy. The Pacific Swift was great - a real June mega that was supposed to cap off a decent spring (at least for ticks) and keep us pumped until September arrived. Then last week came the Needletail. Two monster swifts unleashed in ten days - had that really just happened?! Then, six days on, I'm sat in the office at work and Dom calmly relays a tweet to me "Bridled Tern... Farne Islands"!

Say what?!

This was getting too good to be true. Another bird out of the top drawer. Of course, no one had got near this particular bird yet and, after just twenty minutes, it had flown off. But we knew that a Bridled - not accessible to the masses in Britain since 1988 and thus a similar calibre of 'blocker' to both the recent swifts - was in Northumbrian waters. Some went that evening, and scored crippling views of the bird when it flew back in at around 18:30, roosting among the local Arctic Terns. Others, like myself, were consequently spurred in to action by the bird's reappearance and organized a boat out of Seahouses at 06:00 the following morning.

Superb overnight driving from Pegden had us in the harbour car park as first light was breaking. Rich tried to scan Inner Farne at extreme range while the rest of us just dozed. 06:00 came around soon enough, though, and we were quickly on our way towards the island with around 30 others. Plenty of familiar faces but some new ones too - plenty of youth out in force today.

Arrived on Inner Farne at 06:30. The bird was showing instantly, giving a fabulous mix of crippling flight views (to less than 10m) and more extended looks as it perched on rocks. It also serenaded us with its peculiar gull-like call on several occasions. Sadly, though, the party was soon over and the bird headed off out to sea at 06:45 - before I'd a) got some nice shots and b) been fully satisfied with watching it!

It was hard to complain, though. Could the bird have chosen a better location?! Embarrassed to say that I'd never been to the Farnes before. I'll definitely be returning! Arctic Terns were everywhere, with many feeding youngsters:

Puffins were also commplace, and seemed to enjoy perching on buildings:

Great views of Bamburgh Castle en route back to the mainland too. We docked at 08:00, got involved in a cooked breakfast in a local cafe and then began the drive south. More top driving from John despite the rest of us nodding off and I found myself back in London by a little before 16:00. If only they were all so straightforward!

Now, surely that is it for the summer! Or will there be a Red-necked Stint? Or something rarer?! I guess the way things seem to be going right now, you just never know.

More on the needletail

Yours truly with the needletail, videograb with thanks to Dan Pointon

"There we were on the hard shoulder of the M6, a couple of hundred yards short of Gretna services. The blue lights were still flashing through the back window as Dan continued his futile attempts to start the car. We were due to fly out from Inverness in about 6 hours time. In our minds, though no-one dared speak it, were thoughts of the air fare going down the drain and the chance of a Needletail going with it."

The above is the opening paragraph from John Pegden's fantastic write-up of our day out yesterday. You can read the whole thing here - it's well worth it:
http://talesfromswallowfarm.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/needletail-highs-and-lows-of-twitching.html

I've also co-written an illustrated piece for the BirdGuides webzine that details much of the day from both mine and Alan Tilmouth's experiences of the day. You can read (if a subscriber) by clicking here. Meanwhile, I'll leave you with a couple more photographs showing the upperside:

...and the underside:

The trip was rounded off with these dudes - there were loads of them flowering at Stornoway airport, though I can't really decide what they are - Northern Marsh or Early Marsh?

White-throated Needletail

Very brief post from Stornoway airport. What an incredible bird. More pics and context coming soon.